214 IValks in New England 



Ascutney ; or over multitudinous hills to the 

 Adirondacks, as if it were Greylock he stood on. 

 All the mountain world is his in a new sense ; it 

 almost seems as if it were but to will, and be trans 

 ported to Greylock, to Mettawampe, or to Met- 

 tawee, as the oriental heroes journey. But no 

 magic carpet has ever been owned in New Eng 

 land, except the one Madame Blavatsky had at 

 Spirit Vale, and that she took with her. 



This fall there is no swift and sweeping change 

 of colour in the hills, but as a whole the great 

 effect is delayed and prolonged ; the work began 

 later than usual, and individual trees have suddenly 

 reddened or bloomed in golden luxuriance, and 

 sooner than their wont have shed their leaves 

 and stand bare amid their yet verdant fellows. 

 But we cannot clearly know in our valley when 

 in the northern or western hills, lifted from a 

 thousand to three thousand feet higher, this mag 

 ical painting of the autumn began. A month ago 

 there was a marshy pasture on the side of Metta- 

 wampe as brilliant in its glow of ruddy maples as 

 any place hereabout is now, and in the noble sugar 

 orchards of that region there were glorious old 

 maples, with their feet in the springy mountain 

 side, as richly robed as such monarchs ought to be, 

 before whose presence one remembered the boast 

 of King Adrastus in Talfourd s &quot; Ion : &quot; 



